


Cats and Doorbells

by CakeKnife



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, honestly this is just trash, i had no idea where i was going with this, the title is terrible so it matches the content, tucker forgets how to be smooth, wash just wants to get some sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 13:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6857497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CakeKnife/pseuds/CakeKnife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tucker hates cats, and Washington just wants some sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cats and Doorbells

**Author's Note:**

> A combination of the 'your cat keeps meowing outside my door at 3am au' and the 'I lost my keys and locked myself out, can I sleep at your place au'  
> I honestly had no idea where I was going with this, but hopefully it turned out okay??

Lavernius Tucker was beginning to hate cats.

More specifically, he was beginning to hate the cat that had been meowing unceasingly outside of his door for the past hour and a half, and had been doing so for the majority of the week.

Usually, it only stuck around for a few minutes before moving on, but this time, it just would not stop. Tucker was debating getting up and physically chasing it away, having not done so previously out of sheer laziness- the early hours of the morning not being the best of times to get up and chase cats down corridors.

He was beginning to see why pets were banned in most apartment buildings, and beginning to regret moving into one that allowed them. He made a mental note to find out who the cat belonged to, and personally fight them. In the morning though, of course. There was no way he would be willing to fight people at this time.

He tried to roll over and pull his sheets over his head to try and drown out the noise, but was unsuccessful. An attempt to block it out by pulling a pillow over his face also proved ineffective, and he rolled over and checked the clock beside his head, the edge of the neon-lit display covered by a cluster of worn down star stickers.

“3am. Why am I up at 3am.” He spoke out loud, and the cat outside meowed especially loudly, as if to remind him. “Shut the fuck up.” He paused for a brief few seconds. “I’m talking to a fucking cat.” In Tucker’s mind, that was the final straw. Swinging his legs and half rolling, half sliding out of the bed, he hauled himself to his feet, rubbing his eyes to try and clear his bleary vision. Fishing a clean looking t-shirt off the floor, he made his way towards the front door to the apartment, and swung it open, trying not to make too much of a noise.

Sure enough, the cat stood there, looking up to him expectantly before letting out a plaintive meow and walking calmly away from the door, sitting down again a few meters away, meowing again.

If a cat was able to look like an asshole, then Tucker knew this was what it would look like.

Sighing to himself, he walked out of his apartment, in the hopes of scaring the cat away, but the moment he approached, it simply stepped a little further back and meowed again. He managed to back the cat far enough down the hallway to get it out of earshot, before turning back and heading towards the open door of his apartment, ready to lie down and actually get some sleep.

“Oh son of a bitch.” The moment he stepped through the door, the infuriating sound of a cat meowing reached his ears, and he turned around to see the cat, sitting directly in its original position, a look that was painfully alike to smugness upon its face. Beginning to lose his patience- not that he had any in the first place- with the cat, Tucker tried to appear imposing as he walked towards it, hoping to scare it off without making too much noise. The only reaction he managed to prompt was a blink of wide blue eyes, and for the cat to walk off, sitting down again a few meters away, an exact repeat of its prior response. Following the cat gradually down the corridor, resisting the urge to just yell at it to get it to leave him alone, Tucker made his way down the hallway again, hoping to find the door of the person who owned the cat. Screw waiting for the morning to bring it up- whoever it was he was about to confront deserved to know how much of an asshole their cat was, and immediately.

The cat lead Tucker right to the stairwell at the end of the hallway, then up it, the metal edges to the stairs cold against his feet as he made it up to the floor above his and a little way along it, before stopping outside a door right in the middle of the hallway. Reaching up and pressing the doorbell that had been built into the wall outside of the door, Tucker glared down at the cat, which had begun to meow again, almost as if it knew how much it frustrated him. He made an internal note that, if he ever got around to wanting a pet, to only ever consider buying something non-vocal, before pressing the doorbell again.

Meanwhile, David Washington was beginning to hate doorbells.

Of course, the one night he had managed to get to bed and drift off to sleep at a time that wouldn’t require him to consume enough coffee to give most people a heart attack the following morning, some asshole decided to start ringing his doorbell at 3am. He lay on his back in his bed, staring up at the ceiling of his room, trying to drown out the sound, hoping that whoever it was would give up and go away. Considering the fact that whoever it was had been at it for almost three minutes, Wash realised that the person going away on their own accord was fairly unlikely.

There was a sudden halt in the noise of the doorbell, and his breath hitched hopefully in his throat, wondering if the person had indeed given up. The sigh he let out as it continued seconds later was deflating and more than a little angry. His vision was blurry from lack of sleep as he forced himself out of bed and down to the door of the apartment, almost tripping over one of his cats- Theta, most likely- who had decided to fall asleep on the floor. He paused before opening the door, having to take a few seconds to recollect his thoughts, half of his mind seeming to still be asleep.

“What.” Wash’s word as he opened the door was more a blunt statement than a question, however the only answer he received was the movement of grey fur past his legs, indicating that Epsilon, another of his cats, had just ran into the apartment. How he got out in the first place- the fact that the door had been locked all night, and the fact that the only windows in the apartment lead straight to six floors worth of empty air- a complete mystery to Wash. Watching for a little while longer as Epsilon ran into the corner and jumped onto the bookshelf, he rubbed his eyes again to try and clear some of the blurriness, then turned back towards the person standing in his doorway.

His eyes skimmed over most of the person’s features without registering any of them, only picking up on dark skin and warm brown eyes. The person remained silent,  focused intently on something, but lack of sleep managed to let what exactly was catching his attention slip past Wash’s attention. The person in the doorway remained silent, and Wash repeated his prior statement.

“What.”

Tucker only noticed that he had been staring at the person who had opened the door when they spoke for a second time. He had been stuck standing at their door for at least five minutes, repetitively ringing the doorbell, and had come up with a long list of creative insults to throw at whoever had opened the door to him, expecting the person living in the apartment to be some sort of old woman maybe, the crazy cat lady type. What he hadn’t anticipated was ruffled blonde hair, skin with freckles scattered across it in random patterns and clusters, and steel grey eyes that stared past him in an unfocused manner, and found himself momentarily losing the ability to speak because shit he was attractive. He blinked owlishly towards the stranger standing in the doorway, then coughed to try and prompt his vocal chords to actually function.

“Your cat.” Accompanied with a vague hand gesture towards the inside of the person’s apartment, the phrase definitely wasn’t the most smooth introduction Tucker had ever made.

“What about my cat?” The stranger’s voice was an interesting one, despite the fact that the words seemed to be lazily formed in a manner that, along with the dark smudges under his eyes, suggested that Tucker had woken him up from what must have been his first decent sleep in quite a while. If it wasn’t for the cat that sat on the bookshelf in the apartment, staring towards him in a constant reminder of why he was there in the first place, Tucker would have most likely just apologized and left.

“Your cat keeps meowing outside of my door at stupid o’clock every morning, and I need to get some sleep.” The person in the doorway blinked towards him, and Tucker found his focus diverted onto their eyes, noticing a slight greenish hue that edged around the middle of the iris before fading out into grey.

“Well, you know, I also need sleep, and you ringing on my doorbell repetitively isn’t exactly helping that.” Tucker made a mental note to avoid focusing too much on individual features of the person in the doorway, finding himself distracted by his eyes far too easily.

“I’m sorry- your cat is out of my way now, so I won’t keep you up any longer..” He opened his mouth to add something else, but the stranger with the blonde hair threw him a curt sort of nod, then closed the door on him before he could add anything. He lingered outside for a few seconds, before yawning and making his way back down the stairs to his own apartment, quietly cursing himself as he did so. He blamed his sudden inability to act smooth in front of the stranger on his lack of sleep.

“You didn’t even try to get his name, and now you’ve probably pissed him off too much to do it at a later date.” Tucker wasn’t sure what was worse, the fact that he was previously talking to a cat, or the fact that he now seemed to be lecturing himself.

“Ah shit.” a sensation dread crept up on Tucker as he saw his apartment door, which was now closed, and he walked quickly over to it, attempting to twist the handle, but it jarred, indicating that it had swung shut and locked itself, shutting him out in the corridor, his keys still left in his bag inside his bedroom, on the complete wrong side of the door to what side he needed them on.

“Damn it.”

Wash had managed to close his eyes for less than a minute, when the doorbell rang again.

Groaning loudly to himself, he pretty much rolled himself back out of the bed, the noise he made as he collided with the floor causing Theta to shoot to their paws and bolt off into the corner. He swung the door open again to find the same man standing there, a sheepish look upon his face as he stood in the darkness of the poorly lit hallway.

“Okay I’m so so sorry but I kind of locked myself out of my apartment while I was chasing your cat and I sort of need somewhere to sleep until I can go and get the spare key in the morning.” His words were jumbled, as if he couldn’t get them out fast enough, finishing up with an awkward sort of smile. Although the urge to simply close the door on his face was a strong one, Wash managed to force down the temptation, feeling just the slightest bit sorry for the person standing there. He let out a drawn out sigh, just to reinforce the fact that he wasn’t exactly delighted to do favours for a person who had woken him up at 3am.

“You can sleep on the armchair for tonight.” Wash lead the person into the living space of his apartment, and swept a few cat hairs off the chair onto the floor, before gesturing to it. “I don’t have any spare blankets that I can lend you, but you’ll probably only get a few hours of sleep anyway. I’m also going to try and get some sleep, and try not to disturb me any more than you already have.” He tried to put a slight hint of bitterness into the last part, just to bring up the fact that the man, who was beginning to settle down wordlessly onto the armchair, had decided that the early hours of the morning were a good time to ring on people’s doorbells and complain about their cats

To say that Wash slept badly for the rest of that night would be a fairly large understatement. His sleep patterns were usually fitful, only getting a few minutes of rest before waking up then drifting off to sleep again, only to repeat the cycle, leaving him with the feeling that he hadn’t slept at all most nights, that night being no exception. He was almost grateful when his alarm went off, allowing him to get out of bed and head into the kitchen, intending to make himself the strongest coffee he possibly could.

He was startled to find a person asleep on his armchair.

Up until that point, Wash had just about forgotten the events of earlier that morning, only recalling them seconds before he was about to throw something at the apparent intruder to his living space. Now that the room was flooded with daylight, Wash was able to examine the person properly, and came to the conclusion that he instantly regretted being so bitter towards him the night before. He allowed his gaze to flicker over the person’s sleeping form, taking in the relaxed features of his face, the way he breathed softly and shifted in his sleep, before warm-toned eyes opened and stared towards him, causing Wash to jump away in surprise, as if the floor had administered him an electric shock.

“Do you want some coffee?” He tried to recover himself, stepping backwards in the direction of the kitchen, almost tripping over Sigma as he did so, the cat looking up at him with disapproving amber eyes before moving away to find another spot to lie in. After yawning loudly and sitting up in the chair, the person nodded.

“I don’t think I’ll last more than a few hours today if I don’t get caffeine soon.” Wash smiled wearily as if to agree with the statement, and started to prepare the coffee, well aware of the gaze of the person on the armchair trained directly onto him as he did so.

“So, uh, I didn’t manage to catch your name last night.” Wash found himself being asked as he handed the man his coffee, and shrugged noncommittally.

“It’s David Washington, but most people just call me Wash because it’s more simple.”  The person nodded, as if running the name through his mind.

“Well, I’m Lavernius Tucker, but everyone calls me Tucker because nobody can ever spell my first name properly.” Tucker let out an awkward laugh that trailed away as Wash didn’t respond to the joke, busy taking drink of the coffee, the jolt it gave to his system a welcome spark of life- otherwise, he would have been condemned to the fate of feeling like a walking, sleep-deprived corpse for the rest of the day. He glanced across towards Tucker, who was evidently searching desperately for a conversation topic.

“The weather’s nice today?” It was more of a question than a statement, and Wash laughed inwardly as he glanced out of the window to see grey clouds, threatening to spill rain down onto the pavements at any given moment. Tucker took a sip of his coffee, and shuddered slightly, peering down into the cup. “Wow that’s strong.”

“Well, you said you needed caffeine, so I decided to supply.” He received a raised eyebrow and slight look of disbelief in response.

“I didn’t mean that much caffeine.” He let out a short laugh. “How are you even drinking that without flinching- are you made of 70% coffee or something?”

“I like to think it’s at least 90%.” Although he didn’t exactly want to admit it out loud, Wash was beginning to find Tucker at least a little bit enjoyable to talk with now that he was beginning to wake up and feeling slightly more agreeable. Tucker finished off his coffee, grimacing slightly with each mouthful, then glanced up at the clock.

“Okay, thankyou so much for letting me stay overnight, but I think I’ll be able to go and get my spare key and get out of your way now.” He placed his cup down on the table, and rose to his feet, Wash following him over to the door to open it for him. “Is there any sort of favour you’d want me to do; you know, to apologize for waking you up at 3am and to thank you for letting me sleep here?”

“Well, dinner would be good.” Wash cursed himself internally as the words slipped out of his mouth, having intended to just keep them as a thought rather than actually voicing them. Tucker blinked at him in an owl-like manner, wide eyed and slightly caught off guard, then attempted to recover himself.

“Oh, right of course. I mean, who wouldn’t want to have dinner with me.” His words were hurried and jumbled, a hastily formulated attempt to act smooth that quite honestly had the exact opposite effect to what he had intended, causing him to appear more startled than anything else.

“Are you free tonight?” Wash asked, and Tucker only nodded in response, seeming to have forgotten momentarily how to form words. “Actually, wait here.” Wash quickly noted down his number onto a piece of paper, torn from a small notepad that sat next to his phone and handed it to Tucker, slightly unused to being the one to take charge in such situations. “You can text me about it later.” Nodding, the man, who was now standing a little way into the hallway, shot him another awkward smile.

“Sounds good- I’ll see you tonight, I guess?” Wash returned the smile.

“As long as it’s at a reasonable time- preferably before 12am, then yes, I’ll see you tonight.” Tucker began to walk off down the corridor, Wash closing the door behind him, filled with an airy sensation of amusement as he listened to the footsteps reversing, having headed down to the wrong end of the hallway, a wide grin spreading across Wash’s face despite trying to force it down.

Okay, so maybe he enjoyed Tucker's company a little more than he was willing to admit.

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this from my phone so there might be some editing mistakes  
> Anyway, it's trash but I hope it was even just a slight bit enjoyable


End file.
